A Bitter Pill for Tennessee in Its Rivalry With UConn

The gulf in the once-prominent rivalry between Connecticut and Tennessee, the most storied programs in Division I women’s college basketball, has never been wider. But right in the heart of Lady Vols country, at least one player of state renown is all in on the Huskies’ bid for an unprecedented fourth consecutive Division I national title.

That player’s wonderful basketball name is Crystal Dangerfield, who happens to be the first Connecticut recruit from the state where Coach Geno Auriemma’s teams have, for two decades, been largely reviled, if grudgingly respected.

“I’m hearing everybody say they can get it done,” said Dangerfield, a 5-foot-6 point guard who recently completed her career at Blackman High School in Murfreesboro, Tenn., after committing to UConn as a junior. “Maybe they’ll slip up, but I’m psyched, can’t wait to see them make history.”

It is difficult to gauge whether Dangerfield’s position is less a home-state sacrilege now than it would have been a decade ago, when Tennessee and Connecticut were the annual main event of the women’s college game. It nonetheless is a statement.

“I think now what this shows is where Connecticut has gone in the sport, which is where Tennessee used to be,” said Monte Hale Jr., the sports editor of The Murfreesboro Post, who has covered what he calls the best girls’ basketball district in Tennessee for 20 years. “Crystal is an unbelievable point guard. It used to be if there was an elite player in Tennessee, it was a given that she’d play for Pat Summitt.”

Tennessee has not played Connecticut since Summitt, the former coach, ended the regular-season series in 2007 after questioning Connecticut’s tactics in recruiting Maya Moore. The chances are Tennessee will not survive long enough to confront UConn in the tournament, given its No. 7 seed in the Sioux City region, while the undefeated Huskies are the top seed in the Bridgeport region.

Illustrative of Tennessee’s recession since Summitt retired in 2012 after she was found to have Alzheimer’s disease, the Lady Vols fell out of the Top 25 in February for the first time in 31 years and, with a 19-13 record, wound up with their lowest seeding ever.

Image

Crystal Dangerfield (32) and her Blackman High School teammates after winning a Tennessee state championship game in 2014.CreditWade Payne/Associated Press

Auriemma’s team, conversely, is the favorite to claim its 11th national title, adding to his record. The recruitment of Dangerfield, a McDonald’s all-American who was recently named Miss Basketball for the second consecutive season in Tennessee’s Class AAA division, is probably no more than a locational coincidence, given Auriemma’s need to replace his electric senior point guard, Moriah Jefferson.

It still was a blow, at least symbolically, to the rabid Tennessee fan base that has begun to wonder about the team’s direction under Coach Holly Warlick, the longtime Summitt assistant who replaced her.

In a telephone interview, Dangerfield’s mother, Davonna, said she did not want to say anything “that would be inflammatory in any way” to the Tennessee fan base. There had been a fair amount of chatter on social media when Crystal announced her decision after visiting Connecticut early in her junior season.

In fact, Davonna Dangerfield said, the family has lived in Tennessee (Murfreesboro is about two and a half hours from the Tennessee campus in Knoxville) “for all of Crystal’s life.”

“So, of course, we would have loved for her to play here,” she said. “But we didn’t steer her, we followed her. And her desire to fulfill her dream was strong.”

With that, she called her daughter to the telephone to explain why, after playing basketball from age 5 and becoming a serious Lady Vols fan during the Candace Parker championship years of 2007 and 2008, she became enamored of Connecticut enough to announce her accelerated decision upon visiting Storrs, Conn., for the team’s annual First Night ceremony in October 2014.

Obviously, she said, the Huskies’ runaway success of the past few years builds on itself, making a scholarship offer difficult to turn down. In addition, for both of her visits to Connecticut, Jefferson was her host, and she related to the standard Auriemma recruiting missive.

“Moriah said, ‘They’re going to strip you down and mold you into the player they want you to be,’ ” Dangerfield said. “I loved hearing that. I watched them run a practice, and everything was at high speed, really precise. That’s how I am, how I want to be.”

She added: “I knew there were going to be some things said back home when I committed, but from when I was a young age, I never paid much attention to other people’s ideas if I believed in mine. I am my own person.”

Davonna Dangerfield said there was a prideful component for her and her husband, Christopher, when “we saw that Crystal had the courage to not allow outside influences to push her in a certain way.”

Interested in music and in a possible career in medicine, Dangerfield, her mother said, “did her academic research because she knows basketball isn’t going to be forever.”

It will, no doubt, be her indoctrination into the UConn culture — and at the mercy of Auriemma, who is notoriously tough on point guards.

“That will be interesting to see, something to watch, how Crystal can deal with Geno,” said Tom Insell, who coached Dangerfield with the Tennessee Flight, a premier club program. “Crystal is the best recruit he’s got coming in, but she’s not a Maya Moore, a Breanna Stewart.

“She’s small but can really jump, is lightning quick and can shoot the 3. But she likes to handle the ball, and, you know, Geno expects his point guards to distribute, play a certain way.”

Insell knows Auriemma, as two of Insell’s former players, Stefanie Dolson and Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis — neither from Tennessee — played for his club before starring at UConn. He does not believe Dangerfield will set a precedent of Tennessee’s best fleeing northeast. And while he thought Warlick “would have taken” Dangerfield, her most recent backcourt recruits might have created a logjam, understating Tennessee’s push.

“Tennessee has talent,” Insell said. “They’ll continue to draw talent. And next year, with Stewart and Jefferson gone, things will get interesting.”

Auriemma and Warlick have reportedly had informal chats about renewing the Connecticut-Tennessee series, with nothing promised. One of Dangerfield’s high school teammates, Meme Jackson, is a Tennessee freshman. A city rival, Anastasia Hayes, outscored Dangerfield, 28-19, as Riverdale High recently upset Blackman, the defending champion, in the state tournament. Hayes, a junior, will probably be high on Tennessee’s want list for 2017.

If anything is crystal clear, it is that if the rivalry — once viewed as the women’s game’s best marketing tool — ever gets renewed, it will need fresh story lines. Without suiting up for UConn, Dangerfield has fired an enticing first shot.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page SP7 of the New York edition with the headline: Tennessee Is Served a Bitter Rivalry Pill . Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe